Communications edge stays with offenses

NFL owners nix plan to allow headsets on defensive players

March 28, 2007|By Don Pierson, Tribune pro football reporter.

Defense might win championships, but offense again won the vote Tuesday when NFL owners turned down a recommendation to allow one defensive player per team to wear a helmet headset to communicate with coaches between plays the way quarterbacks do.

With a three-fourths majority necessary, this year's vote was 22-10, closer than last year's 18-14 but still not enough to give the defense the same advantage as the offense.

Falcons general manager Rich McKay, co-chairman of the competition committee, said there are concerns about policing the use of the helmet headset because of defensive substitutions. On offense, only quarterbacks are allowed to wear them, but on defense, a linebacker and his backup equipped with headsets might be on the field at the same time.

But McKay admitted the biggest stumbling block was "offensive coaches who take the position, `I don't necessarily like this.' We have to find a way to penetrate that group. It's something we'll bring up again."

After further review . . .

Instant replay, which used to be subject to owner approval on a year-to-year basis, finally was installed permanently by a 30-2 vote.

In 2004 owners installed the system for five years but made it permanent to coincide with a major capital investment in high definition television equipment for every stadium.

The two negative votes were from the Bengals and Cardinals, teams that consistently have voted against the concept of instant replay since it was installed 20 years ago.

Revenue sharing

The league's latest agreement to share revenue will redistribute $430 million through 2009 from high-revenue to low-revenue clubs that are hurt by last year's collective bargaining agreement that awarded 60 percent of gross revenue to players.

"It's not a system that everybody is thrilled with, but that's a necessary part of compromising," Bears' chairman Michael McCaskey said. "You have to have every one of the 32 teams able to compete and this should be a big step in that direction."

The Bears are one of the high-revenue teams that will give previously unshared revenue to smaller-market teams. But owners such as the Bills' Ralph Wilson have called the new CBA a bad deal and caution that the new revenue sharing does not guarantee long-term labor peace. The more money big-market teams earn the higher the salary cap, continually squeezing low-revenue clubs.

"It doesn't fix things forever," McCaskey said. "It's progress. It's something we're going to have to continue to wrestle with. This is the spirit that has animated the league and has helped us be so prosperous. It takes us a while. We thrash it through and recognize it is one of the great strengths of the NFL."

Rivera rule

Assistant coaches on Super Bowl-bound teams now will be allowed to have second interviews for head coaching positions during two-week breaks before Super Bowls. Before, they were limited to only one interview before divisional playoff games.

This is the Ron Rivera rule, passed after former Bears' defensive coordinator Rivera was interviewed by the Dolphins, Steelers and Cardinals for head coaching jobs last season but was prevented from second interviews while the Bears remained in the Super Bowl hunt.